


Saying That I Want More

by bohnem990



Series: You Were Red [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, M/M, Polyamory, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6775594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bohnem990/pseuds/bohnem990
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duncan misses his son, misses the chaotic mess that comes with having a two year old, someone who watches your hockey and always thinks you’re the greatest. He misses his Number One Dad mug and the look that Kelly-Rae gave him when Colton presented it to him. He misses belonging somewhere other than Brent Seabrook’s couch with someone else’s wife memorising how he likes his herbal tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saying That I Want More

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Halsey’s _Hold Me Down._
> 
> In case you didn’t know this verse is based off the tumblr post where you get tally marks on your wrists when you fall in love. Red mean unrequited, black means the love is returned, and a scarred mark means they’ve died. (I’ve added another mark color that hasn’t been introduced yet, but when it is all hell is going to break loose.)

Duncan falls in love, and Duncan loses everything. It’s funny how that correlation works, because Kelly-Rae had been his high school sweetheart and Brent had been his linemate. The problem was, Brent was never just his linemate. Brent was always more than that, and over the years, so became Dayna. 

That’s where things became really messed up. 

Like revenge, divorce papers are a dish best served cold. Duncan’s wrist throbs with a phantom ache when he opens the front door for the courier and signs for the manila envelope. He doesn’t read the papers, he already knows she wants his son and half of what he’s worth. With the same pen he signed for the envelope with, he signs the divorce papers. He agrees; this is all his fault anyway. 

The courier takes the envelope back and leaves, Duncan sighs. It’s over and he’s mostly relieved. 

But he is alone, and that’s the part that hurts. 

\--- 

When they tell him four to six weeks, Duncan is the least surprised. It is his knee after all and yes, he’s going to sit on his ass and heal up and then push through rehab, but he isn’t surprised. What does surprise him is when Brent drives him home from the hospital and they end up at Brent’s house instead of his own. 

“Someone has to take care of you,” Brent gives him a cautious smile when Dayna comes out to the garage to meet them, each of them taking one of his arms to help him hop inside. 

And yeah, maybe Duncan didn’t think about that. He didn’t have anyone to lean on anymore, not really. 

“Looks like you’re stuck with us for a while,” Dayna smiles at him as she’s packing pillows around his knee, his body taking up all the prime real estate on the couch in their living room. 

“And being stuck with us means being stuck with our kids,” Brent adds, depositing Kenzie onto Duncan’s chest. She smiles up at him and reaches out with one of her hands to pat his cheek and Duncan can feel something in his chest loosen minutely. 

“I think I can handle that.” 

Duncan misses his son, misses the chaotic mess that comes with having a two year old, someone who watches your hockey and always thinks you’re the greatest. He misses his Number One Dad mug and the look that Kelly-Rae gave him when Colton presented it to him. He misses belonging somewhere other than Brent Seabrook’s couch with someone else’s wife memorising how he likes his herbal tea.

It’s disconcerting, to be honest, and it’s worming it’s way somewhere in his chest that’s deeply inappropriate. He’s taken to not looking at his wrist because it makes his eyes water and Duncan blames the drugs Dayna makes sure he takes on time, but Duncan knows the truth. 

The truth is Duncan and Brent have had unapologetically black tallies on their wrists for each other since 2008. The truth is that Duncan doesn’t understand how soulmarks work because they don’t always work; they don’t mean forever and they don’t mean guaranteed happiness. They mean _‘my soul sees yours’_ and Duncan used to think that was beautiful, but now he thinks it’s sad. 

His soul has seen three people and he can’t be with any of them. 

Kelly-Rae left him because despite the vows they gave each other, that Brent Seabrook would never come between them, that being in love with his best friend didn’t mean loving her any less, she could never fully believe it. They had been high school sweethearts, in love since they were fifteen, and she would never get over believing that his loyalties belonged with someone else. 

They didn’t, and they never would, but she couldn’t stand knowing that Brent got to have a piece of him, too. 

The last two marks make Duncan’s mouth taste bitter. Because they’re married. To each other. 

The red tally emblazoned on his wrist is the worst because Duncan saw it come in. Dayna had taken to sitting on the couch with him and watching her soaps while Carter and Kenzie napped. Kenzie was situated on Duncan’s chest because she had claimed it as her spot, just as this was now Duncan’s couch. Dayna had poured herself onto the couch behind him, her back against his chest and their legs bracketing each other. It made his knee ache for stupid reasons (because the vicodin he was taking was going towards how much it made his heart hurt instead of the pain in his leg). 

It feels like family, and Duncan has to look away from the television for a moment, down at Kenzie instead, and it’s just in time to watch red ink run across his skin. 

He is going to be sick. He is going to throw up, and - fuck. 

“Day, I gotta..” Duncan tries to sit up, careful of the baby on his chest. 

“Of course, c’mon,” Dayna peels herself away from him and takes Kenzie from his arms, balancing her in one and reaching out for Duncan with the other. 

“I can piss by myself, D,” Duncan grimaces, and pushes himself up from the couch. The pain that shocks his knee when his straightens it is well deserved. 

He takes his crutches to the bathroom at a snail’s pace and leans them up against the sink after he closes the door. He doesn’t have to piss, he has to lean against the granite countertop and breathe unsteadily instead. 

The marks on his wrist have already ruined one marriage; he won’t let them ruin a second. 

\---

Duncan watches all of the Hawks games while he’s laid up on Brent’s couch because he’s pretty sure it’s law. It’s weird, getting to focus on Brent skate without him. It’s kind of mesmerizing and his wrist throbs in sympathy, but Duncan ignores it; he’s always ignored it. 

He ignored it when he was married and he ignores it when he’s divorced. If one mark can ruin something seventeen years in the making, he can’t imagine what it would do to Brent and Dayna and he won’t be responsible for that.

The days pass in a blur of home and away games, in sleeping on the couch and trying to walk around the house, in Dayna eyeing him warily and telling him not to push it, in Kenzie sleeping on his chest and Carter being careful of his knee because he’s a big boy now, in Brent being home and being a buffer between Duncan and falling in love with someone else’s wife.

In 2008, when the black tallies happened, they made an agreement. It was short and sweet and it stated: it doesn’t mean anything. 

It was true then and it still is now, in some convoluted kind of way. It means much more than anything. It means safety and stability. It means someone to talk to when things get hard, when your wife decides to leave you. It means someone to freak out with when your wife gets pregnant. It means a sure thing when you need to Uber home after you win the Stanley Cup _together._ It means being in love but never acting on it. It means trying not to fall in love with his wife. It, apparently, means failing. 

He makes it a habit to stop checking his wrist. 

The days mark down and Duncan is allowed to start rehab. Leaving the house is relief, getting away from Dayna and the way she smells like baby powder and the herbal eat she brews him. Duncan trades that for the way Brent smells like body wash and sweat, something he’s been used to for years. Duncan doesn’t feel guilty for loving him, he never has, and that’s where things are different. 

Falling into the pain is easy and well deserved. He’s thirty two years old and pushing his body to incredible limits. Duncan has worked to be able to do this, to be holding his own with the new kids in the Big Show. And he can, bouncing back from surgery is just proof of that. 

It makes him feel better, to be back in the training rooms with the rest of the guys and able to mostly walk on his own without a hand to guide him. It feels better because he’s almost out of Brent’s house and away from Brent’s wife and Brent’s kids. 

The _thing_ about all of these things is that they’re Brent’s. He is possessive of them, not Duncan. Duncan doesn’t really have any of these anymore. They’re tainted with memories of Kelly-Rae and her touch all over them. He’ll have to buy a new house, he thinks, one without her in all of the places the shared together. 

He has his son; he has his son who he won’t keep full custody over because it makes no sense when he’s never home for long during the season. He has a son who he can’t really have and perhaps that’s the part that hurt the most. 

Brent has a family and Duncan has half a son. 

\--- 

Duncan’s season starts again, but he doesn’t go home. Kenzie is still small and Brent and Dayna have no problems handling everything on their own, but Duncan likes their couch. 

At least that’s what he tells himself. 

Duncan also plays the season angry. He plays with a red mark on his wrist seared in like a brand, fire beneath his skin and speed underneath his skates. He doesn’t fight, because Duncan doesn’t fight. And he doesn’t play second goalie, because Duncan values the teeth his has left. But ever since Bolly left they don’t exactly throw their weight around. Shawzy tries, but he’s still small. Duncan isn’t small, and Duncan is angry. 

He’s angry at himself, mostly, and Brent is the one who notices. 

It’s another agreement they have, however, that keeps him from asking. They don’t meddle in each other’s lives. They don’t ask questions when they haven’t deserved answers. Duncan has always been a private person, keeping quiet over his problems and hitting the gym instead. So this is a side of Duncan that Brent has become accustomed to in the last two years. 

Duncan and Brent are sweaty and tired from spending an hour too long in the gym when they walk into Brent’s house; the first thing they hear is crying. This isn’t unusual, except that it’s Dayna. Brent and Duncan share a look, mirrored worry on their faces, and Duncan detours to Carter’s room. Duncan doesn’t handle crying women well. It reminds him too much of the knock down, drag out fight he got into with Kelly-Rae when she decided to leave, for real that time. It’s a fight they had been having for months, but that was the final one, tears and all. 

Duncan buddies it up with Carter instead. “Girls, huh?” he asks, and Carter nods gravely. He pushes the Legos so they’re sitting between them and Duncan smiles. “So, what are we building?”

“A castle, cuz we gotta save the Princess.” 

“Of course, buddy.”

Duncan doesn’t know how long he sits there with Carter, sticking lego pieces together in a calming monotony of sameness. It helps him feel better and it drowns out the crying. It’s filled with “You can’t put that color there” and “Make that wall taller”. 

“Should we add a mote?” Duncan is asking when Brent sticks his head through the doorway. 

“Hey, Carter, Mom and I need to borrow Duncs for a grown up talk, okay?” 

_This is it,_ Duncan thinks. _They know._

They do know, Duncan realises, when he and Brent step into the living room. Dayna is perched on the edge of the couch, cradling her wrist. 

Duncan freezes in the doorway. “Look, we don’t have to do this. I can pack up my stuff, I can get out of your space. I didn’t - I didn’t mean for this to happen.” 

There’s a look in Brent’s eye that Duncan hasn’t seen there before and he thinks it’s pity, which is perfect. Duncan sighs. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” Danya’s voice is small, watery after crying. 

Duncan laughs, humorlessly. “For what?” he echos.

“D,” Brent starts, and both Duncan and Dayna look up at him. “Duncan.” 

Brent’s hands are the same size as Duncan’s but the feel huge and scary when they’re wrapped around Duncan’s wrist. They feel like shame, like Duncan has felt for months. “Maybe you should look?” 

He shakes his head. They don’t need proof of how fucked up he is. You don’t fall in love with your best friend’s wife. 

“Dayna?”

She nods and pushes herself off the couch. Her eyes are red and now Duncan has proof she’s been crying, been crying over him. “Duncan,” she says, “I love you.” 

“No you don’t.” He shakes his head again. This isn’t funny. 

“We love you,” she repeats herself and wraps her small hand around Duncan’s wrist, where Brent’s hand still is, where all their marks are. “We’ll look on three, okay?”

Duncan hates this idea. He nods anyway. 

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

Brent and Dayna turn his wrist over for him, because Duncan can’t do it himself. They turn their wrists over as well. 

The third mark on his wrist that used to be a glaring shade of red has melted into black. 

Duncan can’t breath. 

“We love you,” Brent is the one to say this time.

“Why were you crying?” Is the response Duncan chokes out, unable to peel his eyes away from his own wrist. 

“You were alone for a really long time, Duncan. And Brent..”

“We wanted to ask you to be here, with us, all the time,” Brent smiles softly. “I’ve loved you for years, babe.” 

Duncan blushes. He’s not used to hearing that word directed at him. He’s not used to any of this. It seems surreal, that everything he’s wanted is coming to life, that he doesn’t have to be ashamed for being in love with Brent’s wife. He’s not ruining a marriage; he might be enriching it. 

“I love you, too.” He’s dreaming. He has to be dreaming. “I love you both, obviously.”

“We know, babe. And we’re sorry we let you be alone for so long.” 

Duncan is never going to get over Brent calling him babe. 

“We agreed that it was going to be all or nothing. If I didn’t love you, then..” 

Dayna steps into Duncan’s space and cups his cheek, pushing up onto her toes to press a soft kiss to his lips. Duncan had almost forgotten this, breathing someone else’s air and sharing their space. He had almost forgotten when it was like to be a part of something, to make someone else happy. 

“But you love me now.” 

“Yeah, baby, we love you now,” Dayna grins, and then it’s Brent’s turn to kiss him, stark contrast to Dayna’s soft lips. Brent kisses him like drowning, like the need to kiss Duncan consumes him. Maybe it is; this moment is eight years in the making, only ever allowed when Duncan daydreamed. 

Brent’s hands are gripping Duncan’s hips so hard they’re going to leave a bruise; Duncan hopes they do. He’s waited for this moment, waited for Brent’s lips on his and to know what he tastes like: peppermint gum and black coffee. He’s going to memorise it, wants to know all the things Brent and Dayna like so he can be good for them like he wasn’t for Kelly-Rae. 

They’re interrupted by the baby monitor. 

“I’ll get her,” Brent pulls away from Duncan with one last peck to his lips. 

“This is your life now,” Dayna grins up at Duncan before pausing. “If you want. We don’t.. Um, want to assume.” 

“I want it, Day.” Duncan kisses her then, too. She tastes like the herbal tea she makes him every morning and if that’s not perfect then Duncan doesn’t know what is. “I’ve wanted this for a really long time. 

If the tally marks mean _‘my soul sees yours’_ , then Duncan agrees. These souls are beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Come join me on [tumblr](http://chicago-runsonduncan.tumblr.com)!


End file.
